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Acceleron Pharma Reports $10.9M Financing

Acceleron Pharma, the Cambridge, MA-based developer of biotech drugs for anemia, bone loss, and other ailments, reports in an SEC filing that it has raised $10.9 million in equity financing. The funding includes an $8 million investment that Cambridge-based biotech Alkermes (NASDAQ:ALKS)made as part of a licensing deal Luke reported early this month, as well as $2.9 million from Acceleron’s previous backers, according to a company spokeswoman.

This money should help Acceleron continue to advance its pipeline drugs and expand its operations. The firm revealed in May that it would be adding 20,000 square feet of lab, office, and manufacturing space in former ImmunoGen quarters on Sidney Street. Luke wrote last week about his personal tour of Cambridge-based Acceleron’s new facilities, and how the firm is taking a different approach than many of its peers by building its own infrastructure for making drugs rather than farming out that job to contractors.

Luke also reported last week that the startup had raised $87 million from top life sciences investors including Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV), Bessemer Venture Partners, Flagship Ventures, MPM Capital, OrbiMed Advisors, Polaris Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, and Venrock Associates. Based on what the company tells us today, all of these backers contributed to this latest financing.

The company’s lead product is a genetically engineered drug called ACE-011, which the firm is developing in mid-stage clinical trials in partnership with Summit, NJ-based biotech powerhouse Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG) to treat bone loss. The treatment is also being developed for anemia. (Here’s a video I like of Acceleron CEO John Knopf talking about the key discoveries that led to the formation of the biotech, on his investor ATV’s website.)